"The God of Cities! Probably with the most unique set of Superpowers going. Jack has lead the worlds most powerful team of super heroes, and been very politically active! Even leading a coup d'etat making him the president of the United States! Black-ops training! Rubbers souls of feet!"

Hawksmoor was described in The Authority #1 as the "God of Cities", though a 2008 solo series called him the "King of Cities" by contrast with a future race of city-empathic figures who were Gods of Cities. He was repeatedly abducted and surgically modified by humans from the 70th century as a child, as a result of which he is linked to whatever city he finds himself in. These future humans modified Hawksmoor to provide him with the ability to combat a threat from the distant future, a gestalt being that was the entire city of Kansas City from the 70th century. Hawksmoor defeated the being by merging with—and transforming—the city of Tokyo into a giant humanoid being, battling and destroying the invader.

Jack Hawksmoor began quietly fighting crime in the city, later moving to strike higher, at politicians and corporations. He caught the attention of Stormwatch's Henry Bendix, who offered him a place in Stormwatch Black, the covert operations team of Stormwatch, alongside Jenny Sparks and Swift. Hawksmoor helped remove power-mad, super-powered cops, stop biological warfare in a small American city, solve the murder of ex-Stormwatch member Undertow and he personally fought and killed the insane, murderous, illegitimate son of a revered American President.

Jack had a tough time with Stormwatch, as the organization's flying fortress was simply not large enough in order to support his unique biological systems. Medical assistance was not very helpful. Hawksmoor was part of the mission against the Changers, a super-powered group out to change the world. During this mission, he was forced to kill fellow teammate Rose Tattoo in order to stop her from murdering. The action failed, as all the Changers ended up murdered or dead.

After Stormwatch was destroyed by alien life-forms, Hawksmoor went into hiding with Jenny Sparks and Swift. There they recruited Apollo, Midnighter, the Engineer and the Doctor, the latter two being spiritual successors of two of the members of the Changers. This team later became The Authority, who formed after a devastating super villain attack on Moscow. This was where Jack learned his powers had increased, bonding him to cities much faster than usual. For example, Moscow let him know she was hurting through a painful nosebleed.

The Authority operated on a ship called The Carrier, which was large enough to qualify as a city, thus keeping Jack healthy. After helping in various invasions, such as from Sliding Albion and God's own worms, Jack was there when Jenny's unique life came to an end. He inherited leadership of the team, leading it through many more dimension-crossing misadventures. He helped assert the team's independence, even once threatening Bill Clinton. For a while, when the team was replaced by evil forces, he lived as a brain-damaged homeless bum, unable to convince anyone who he was. He was rescued by his teammates and restored to his normal self.

The team broke up in 2005 and was restored in 2008 by Jenny Quantum. Jack still completely subscribes to the team ideology to fight for a finer world, no matter what it takes. Despite his deformed genitals (which had made a Secret Service agent vomit), Jack is a womanizer, and he has an open on/off relationship with the Engineer.

It is noteworthy that Jack used to consider killing a last resort. When he was fighting the bastard child of an American President mentioned above, he said "Damn you for making me do this, you filthy bastard" just before hanging him. With tears welling in his eyes, he asks Stormwatch control to teleport him out of the place.

115. Ultra Boy (23 points)

In the Future…

Jo Nah, just a kid from the planet Rimbor enjoying a nice little cruise in his space jalopy when suddenly he is attacked and swallowed whole by giant energy beast. Luckily some Science Police officers, out on a Galactic Patrol, rescued the young teen.

Almost from the start, due to his ultra energy saturation from the space beast, Jo realized that he could do things thought unthinkable before. Just by concentrating he could be super strong, invulnerable, have powerful penetrating vision (can even see through lead), emit a flash of energy from eyes, have super speed and fly. The catch – he could only use one power at a time

Rimbor was not the greatest of planets and seeing a chance for something better, his parents encouraged him to go to Earth and try out for the Legion of Super-Heroes. Unfortunately the Legion had (temporarily) ceased try-outs in favor of a mentor program. Jo was assigned to an adult named Marla Latham. Latham saw enough in the kid to help train him. In time, Jo was given an exam that involved him traveling through time to the early days of Superboy. His assignment was to discover Superboy’s secret identity without revealing he too had powers (obviously Rimbor wasn’t big on 20th/21st Century Earth history).

Succeeding, he won a place with the LSH as their twelfth member taking the name Ultra Boy.

An early adventure had Jo create a bad boy background so as to infiltrate some space raiders. Secrecy was key to the role so the rest of Legion thought the less of him. All except one. Young Tinya Wazzo (Phantom Girl) refused to believe any of it even in the face of (fake) evidence that had Jo expelled from the Legion. Jo did his part in ending the raiders’ plans and his ‘cover’ was forgiven and he was reinstated. As a result of this adventure Jo began falling in love with Phantom Girl – something that would continue to their present day.

While considered by many to be a bit dim-witted, Jo was twice elected Legion Leader.

Jo was again on the outs with the Legion when he was framed for murder. His innocence was again proven and all was well… until he died. Well, not really dead but in a weird loss of memory-coma induced-possession of Superboy’s body-triple split personality-identity of Reflecto. Let's just say he got better and leave it at that.

Even with the limitation of only using one power at a time, Jo is considered one of the big guns of the Legion. His powerhouse style is a force to be reckoned with.

114. Tim Hunter (23 points)

"One of the first characters I think of when I think about Vertigo."

"Harry Potter before Harry Potter. It's hard being one of the greatest sorcerers in all of the realities. It's even harder when you start the job at age 14."

Tim Hunter was created by Neil Gaiman and John Bolton in 1990 for a four issue miniseries wherein a young boy from London (Tim Hunter) was approached by four men of great mystical power, the Trenchcoat Brigade, (all characters from the DC universe) and told him that he had the potential to become the greatest magician of all time. Of course, he was a little unsure at first, and before he made his decision whether or not he would accept the world of magic, they were each to show him part of the history of magic, let him see what world he could be a part of. So the Phantom Stranger took him through the history of magic, John Constantine took him to meet practitioners of magic in the present including Zatanna, Doctor Occult (as Rose) tours him through the Faerie and Mister E shows him the future all the way up to the end of time where he tries to kill Tim who is saved, ironically, by Death. Tim is next seen in the series, Mister E, which details the man's journey back to his own time. His next big role was in the Children's Crusade which had an Arcana Annual, a one-shot dedicated to Tim Hunter's role in the story.

From that point he has appeared in several different titles for a cameo here and there but for the most part he has been limited to a number of volumes with The Books of Magic title or variants thereof. The first of these, as well as the longest, began publication in 1994 under the Vertigo imprint. It was written by John Ney Rieber (with consultation by Neil Gaiman) and ran for six years and seventy-five issues, along with three annuals. After the title's conclusion, it was long before Tim Hunter returned to the comic book world in 2001, this time in a five issue miniseries, The Names of Magic by Dylan Horrocks, which actually served as a bridge to the ongoing title, Hunter: The Age of Magic which ran for twenty-five issues before being canceled in 2003. The latest Books of Magic series, Books of Magick: Life During Wartime was written by Si Spencer with some co-plotting by Neil Gaiman and took place in multiple worlds, although he was the original Tim Hunter, the rest of the cast were mainly alternate versions of supporting characters from his earlier tales.

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